Yoshijiro Umezu

Yoshijiro Umezu (4 January 1882-8 January 1949) was the Japanese Governor-General of Kwantung and commander of the Kwantung Army from 1939 to 1944, succeeding Kenkichi Ueda and preceding Otozo Yamada, and Chief of the General Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army from July 1944 to September 1945, succeeding Hideki Tojo.

Biography
Yoshijiro Umezu was born on 4 January 1882 in Nakatsu, Oita Prefecture, Japan. In 1903 he graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and was a military observer from Japan to Denmark during World War I. In 1922, he left his job as the military attache to Switzerland to be promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and in 1934 he became a Lieutenant-General in the Imperial Japanese Army. He was given command of the Japanese China Garrison Army in Tianjin, and in 1939 he became commander of the Kwantung Army, Japan's massive army in China. As commander-in-chief, he led the Japanese forces in China against the Soviet Union in the Soviet-Japanese War and against the Republic of China and Chinese Communist Party during the Second Sino-Japanese War/World War II, overseeing several atrocities against the Chinese. In July 1944 he replaced Hideki Tojo as Chief of the General Staff of the IJA, and Umezu supported Korechika Anami and Soemu Toyoda in their opposition to surrendering to the United States. However, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes after his death, and he converted to Christianity in prison. He died on 8 January 1949 in prison in Tokyo.